The Rithmatist

disappearing,” Joel said, sharing only what he’d figured out on his own.
    “And?” Melody replied. “They often hire new professors before summer elective starts.”
    “He’s suspicious,” Joel said. “If he was such a great hero back at the battlefront, then why did he come here? Why take a low-level tutor position? Something’s going on with that man.”
    “Joel,” she said. “You’re not honestly implying that Nalizar is behind the disappearances?”
    “I don’t know,” Joel said as they reached the library. “I just want to know what books he’s looking at. I’m hoping Ms. Torrent lets me use a student for an escort.”
    “Well, all right,” Melody said. “But I’m only doing this because I get to take a peek at Nalizar.”
    “Melody,” Joel said. “He’s not a good person.”
    “I never said anything about his morality, Joel,” she said, opening the door. “Only his face.” She swished into the room, and he followed. Ms. Torrent looked up as they passed her desk.
    “He,” Melody said, pointing dramatically at Joel, “is mine. I need someone to carry books for me.”
    Ms. Torrent looked like she wanted to protest, but—thankfully—she decided not to do so. Joel hurried after Melody, but stopped in the doorway to the Rithmatic wing.
    He’d spent years trying to find a way to get into this room. He’d asked Rithmatic students before to bring him in, but nobody had been willing. Nalizar wasn’t the only one who was stingy with Rithmatic secrets. There was an air of exclusion to the entire order. They had their own table at dinner. They expressed hostility toward non-Rithmatic scholars. They had their own wing of the library, containing all the best texts on Rithmatics.
    Joel took a deep breath, following Melody—who had turned toward him and was tapping her foot with an annoyed expression. Joel ignored her, reveling. The room even felt different from the ordinary library wing. The shelves were taller, the books older. The walls contained numerous charts and diagrams.
    Joel stopped beside one that detailed the Taylor Defense—one of the most complicated, and controversial, Rithmatic defenses. He’d only ever seen small, vague sketches of it. Here, however, its various pieces were dissected and explained in great detail, along with several variations drawn smaller to the sides.
    “Joel,” Melody snapped. “I didn’t abandon half my breakfast so you could stare at pictures. Honestly.”
    He reluctantly turned his attention to their task. The bookshelves here were high enough that Nalizar wouldn’t be able to see Joel or Melody enter the room—which was good. Joel hated to contemplate the ruckus Nalizar would cause if he caught a non-Rithmatist poking around these texts.
    Joel waved to Melody, quickly moving down the rows. They seemed placed more haphazardly than back in the main wing, though the library wasn’t really that big. He should be able to find—
    Joel froze midstep as he walked past an aisle between shelves. There was Nalizar, not five feet from where Joel stood.
    Melody pulled Joel aside, out of Nalizar’s line of sight. He stifled a grunt and joined her in the next row. They could peek through a crack between bookshelves and catch a glimpse of Nalizar, though the poor view didn’t let Joel read the title of the book the professor had.
    Nalizar glanced up toward where Joel had been. Then he turned—never noticing Joel and Melody peering through the small slit at him—and walked away.
    “What books are shelved there?” Joel whispered to Melody.
    She rounded the other side—it wouldn’t matter if Nalizar saw her—and took one off the shelf. She wrinkled her nose and held the book up toward the crack for Joel. Theoretical Postulations on Developmental Rithmatics, Revised Edition, with a Foreword by Attin Balazmed.
    “Dry stuff,” she said.
    Theoretical Rithmatics, Joel thought. “I need to know the exact books Nalizar is carrying!”
    Melody rolled her eyes. “Wait here,” she said, then walked off.
    Joel waited nervously. Other Rithmatic students poked about. Those who saw him gave him odd looks, but nobody challenged him.
    Melody returned a few minutes later and handed him a slip of paper. On it was written the titles of three books. “Nalizar gave these to the librarians,” she said, “then left for class, instructing the staff to check the books out to him and deliver them to his office.”
    “How’d you get this?” Joel asked with